


Herald - Diplomat - Spy

by auberus, Morgyn Leri (morgynleri)



Category: Burn Notice, Highlander
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe, Crossover, Don’t copy to another site, GFY, M/M, Pre-Canon, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-29
Updated: 2019-06-29
Packaged: 2020-05-28 18:27:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19399873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auberus/pseuds/auberus, https://archiveofourown.org/users/morgynleri/pseuds/Morgyn%20Leri
Summary: Haeviu meets a recently Immortal Michael Westen in Greece, and decides that it's time enough to take on a new student.





	Herald - Diplomat - Spy

**Author's Note:**

> Be aware that the scene that ends the story is in the middle of foreplay.

Ask a hundred people on the street what they think the best thing about being a spy would be, and you'll get a plethora of different answers, most of them inspired by James Bond. None of them would say the vacations. At the moment, though, the vacations are definitely Michael Westen's favourite part of the job. He's spent the past eighteen months doing deep cover ops in the chaos of the former Soviet Union, and the last one had exploded into a spectacularly appalling mess. Michael had come very close to ending up in a shallow grave somewhere in Uzbekistan, instead of oceanside at the best hotel on Corfu, so when his handler had told him not to call for at least a month, he hadn't argued. A few weeks of sun and surf will go a long way towards relieving the nightmares about waking up wrapped in plastic a foot underground.

He hasn't been back to Greece in centuries, save a brief visit to Corfu itself in the 18th century and that in an official capacity. Visiting it on a holiday is something of a novelty, and he's finding he's enjoying it. Perhaps it's because he's currently Jeannot Charbonneau, professional herald in service of the United Kingdom, rather than a misplaced Celt or a French soldier. Greece certainly hadn't been the best place to be either of those during the time he had been there as such.

Relaxing on the beach, with nothing ahead of him save deciding where to have dinner, seems an ideal way to spend his afternoon. Particularly since there aren't, as far as he's aware, any other Immortals on the island at the moment. Though if there are, he rather hopes they're not hunters. It would be rather irritating to interrupt his holiday with violence.

Michael isn't sure what woke him from the light doze he'd been indulging in, but he's sitting up almost before he realizes it, his heart pounding and his head spinning. He looks around sharply, but seeing no reason for concern, he eases himself back down onto his towel. He's been jumpy for weeks, and though he understands the reasons for it, he still hates feeling this way. His head is still spinning, even though he's flat on his back, so he props himself up on an elbow and grabs his water bottle, hoping he hasn't been stupid enough to let himself get dehydrated.

The wash along his nerves like the prickle of an impending battle makes Haerviu scan the beach, dark eyes observing and cataloguing automatically. No one seems to be getting up to greet him; the only person who seems to have reacted at all is a dark-haired man a bit down the beach who's now getting himself a drink. Possibly the other Immortal he's sensing, or possibly not, but either way, it doesn't appear that whoever it is plans to make trouble for him being in Corfu.

He spreads his towel out on the sand, settling in with the book he's brought to enjoy and his own bottle of water. For all that he can't die from dehydration, he is on a holiday, and there's no point to doing something stupid. Particularly if the other Immortal decides that he's going to make trouble later.

Michael still can't shake the dizzy feeling, so he gets up and heads for the water. Too much sun, probably -- he'll be lobster-red later, and sorry that he stayed out so long, but at the moment he doesn't much care. The water is cool against his skin, and even further out the currents are gentle enough that swimming is easy, rather than a challenge. The dizzy feeling fades as he gets further out, too.

He stays out for maybe thirty minutes -- long enough to cool himself down and force his muscles into at least a little bit of a workout. It won't make up for skipping his run this morning, but he is on vacation, so he doesn't feel too guilty about it. He's just reached shallow water again when the dizziness comes back, badly enough that he stops where he is, one hand going to his head. It's almost as if there's a ringing in his ears, but shaking his head doesn't help to clear them. He crosses the rest of the distance to his towel and lets himself drop down onto it, reaching for his water.

Definately the man who'd reached for his water when Haerviu reached the beach, as the prickle vanishes as the man goes out into the ocean, and returns with him as well. That he continues to ignore Haerviu completely is remarkable, or the sign of a very new Immortal. And a very new Immortal alone is a very vulnerable Immortal, as he knows well. One who won't survive so well in this era as he had managed when he was younger, before he'd met his teacher.

Looking up from his book, he studies the other Immortal for a long moment. Dark hair, eyes that he thinks are blue, and a well-toned body, that last which at least bodes well for his trainability. It's been longer since he's had a student than it's been since he was last in Greece, and he's almost looking forward to the challenge of convincing a new Immortal of what he is and what that means, as well as training him.

Finishing off the last of his water, Michael takes one last look around the beach before letting himself fall back, closing his eyes against the sun. He hadn't seen anything that could be classified as a threat, so he lets himself relax, lets the heat soothe away at least some of the lingering tension that's been with him since his premature burial two weeks earlier.

Marking his place in his book, Haerviu levers his lean body off his towel, making sure the book is safely replaced in the bag he brought for it before he gathers his towel, and approaches the other Immortal. Settling on the sand once more, and sitting on his towel comfortably.

"Pardon, but do you speak French?" he asks in that language, though his preference at the moment would truly be for Latin. There are enough varied tourists on Corfu that there's easily the risk that someone in earshot will understand the language. Latin, on the other hand, is no longer a lingua franca, nor a venacular, and thus less likely to be understood. And if he thought the Immortal old enough to understand it, he wouldn't even have approached him.

"Very little," Michael admits, cracking open one eye. The newcomer is the same man who'd been looking at him a few minutes ago. Despite Michael's tendencies towards paranoia, though, he doesn't think the man means any harm. He'd been looking too openly, for one: secondly, though the beach isn't crowded, there are still too many tourists about for anyone to make a clean getaway after an uproar. "Highschool is a long time ago." He knows he's getting his tenses wrong, but hopefully he's getting the gist of his message across. He hasn't had much use for French since leaving school. Russian, Ukranian, Hungarian -- most of the Slavic languages, actually -- yes. French, no.

A self-depricating smile crosses Haerviu's face a moment. American, then, he thinks, although he hopes the man speaks more than merely English.

"I could but ask," he says, speaking English now, and shrugs. "Although, as English is one lingua franca of the modern world, I should suppose I ought to resign myself to speaking it more often."

His voice still carries an audible trace of French roots, a deliberate choice to accompany his current life. Jeannot, for all that he works and lives in Britain, grew up in Normandy, and his accent reflects that.

"Jeannot Charbonneau." He holds out a hand, an open and friendly smile on his face that warms the lean features and is a useful tool when trying to put someone at ease.

"Michael Westen." Charbonneau's hand is more callused than Michael was expecting. Not from a gun, but it still makes Michael adjust his evaluation of the man. "Sorry to disappoint." He smiles easily, shifting so that he can sit up. "Now, if you'd asked in Russian, that would have been another story."

Languages are something he keeps up on, despite the changing status of a herald - after all, perhaps next life time he'll decide to be a diplomat or a spy, and then the languages would come in handy. "It's not a language I think to use when I first approach someone. After all, I wouldn't want them to think I was insulting them or cursing at them if they didn't understand me." He shrugs one shoulder, another brief and self-depricating smile on his face. "I do, though, speak Russian."

"It can sound aggressive to the uninitiated," Michael agrees. It can also attract unwanted attention in the West, though that's eased somewhat since the collapse of the USSR. "I suppose since I'm here I should make an effort to pick up Greek, but it's hard to worry about that kind of thing on vacation."

Haerviu shrugs one shoulder. "Most of the tourist places in Corfu were created by British companies, and the staff do speak English, so it's not as if one must learn the local dialect of Greek to be understood. Or even text-book Greek." He still listens, and tries to speak the local language if he knows it, regardless. It's a habit born of long centuries of doing so. "If you don't already speak the language, of course. I have to admit to being rather a bit of a language geek, myself."

Michael grins. "Me, too. Though in my case, it's because I do a lot of travelling. It helps to be able to make yourself understood. After all, not everyone speaks English -- especially if you intend to go anywhere that isn't just for tourists." 

"I haven't traveled as much lately as I used to, but it is quite useful in that regard, yes." It made his job to listen for rumors in foreign courts easier when he was a herald, and does the same when he plays the role of diplomat in more recent centuries. "Though I've also an interest in languages that have no use in the modern world, as well, save as a way to communicate to an elite few who might understand them."

He'll bring Immortality and all the rest into the conversation eventually. For now, he'd rather get a feel for this new Immortal, to see what he can learn of him before laying out the whole mess of being Immortal to him. Particularly since he's rather enjoying the conversation, as light at it is at the moment.

Michael shrugs. "I took Latin in middle school, but with that one exception, I stick with the languages people are still speaking." Dead languages aren't much use in his line of work, even for privileged communications, since there's no way to be certain that no one else will understand them. Besides, the machines that do the encrypting now go so far beyond a mere change in language as to be in an entirely different galaxy. 

Haerviu raises an eyebrow, curious. "Do you still remember any of your Latin?" he asks, hoping that perhaps Michael does. After all, it's a language long enough dead to make for a private conversation on a tourist-studded beach. At least, sufficiently private for what he knows he needs to tell Michael.

"Not well enough to speak it," Michael admits. "I could probably still read it, and maybe understand it if I heard it spoken, but that's about it. Middle school is even further away than high school, and I've learned upwards of half a dozen different languages in the interim." Caesar and Cicero don't come up that often in his line of work. "I wouldn't have taken it at all if my mother hadn't gotten it into her head that she wanted me to be a doctor." He'd agreed to learn it in order to get her off his back, and had been surprised to find that he had a gift for foreign languages. 

Chuckling, Haerviu smiles. "I spoke it quite fluently for a long while." That he no longer does is more because there are few people to practice with, though he doubts he's entirely forgotten the language. "It still helps in my line of work to know how to read it and write it, though, with as many mottos as are written in Latin."

"What do you do?" Michael asks. Curiosity has always been his default setting, even around the boring, and Charbonneau decidedly isn't. It strikes Michael suddenly that it's been a long time since he's simply had a conversation, without discussing mission specs or trying to feel out the other party for hidden agendas of one kind or another.

"I'm a herald. A British herald, actually, so there is still something to the job, though it isn't nearly as wide-ranging in necessary skills as the job once was. Modern specialization removes half the fun and most of the danger." He shrugs, smiling, as he doesn't usually miss the danger that being intelligence agent, courier, and battlefield reporter brought to an unarmed herald, for all the codes of chivalry. When he does, he can always indulge in one or another of the professions that once made up his role as herald, or if he's particularly disgruntled, the role of soldier, but it's been centuries since he's really had any desire to be such. More often he's seen battlefields as an observer than as a participant.

Michael lifts both eyebrows, surprised. "I hadn't realized it was still a profession one could follow." Heralds had been among of the earliest professional intelligence officers, at least according to Michael's instructors at Langley, but though he can picture Charbonneau in the business, he hadn't done so, and his instincts are usually better than that.

"In most places, it's not. Britain's one of the few places it's still a profession." He shrugs, smiling a bit at the surprise on Michael's face. "It's why I emigrated there." Jeannot's reason, anyway. Haerviu's reasons are rather more encased in stone and long gone to dust. Over five and a half centuries since one mortal king had captured his attention, and still the island country he came from holds his fascination. It's really quite remarkable.

Michael nods. He's spent enough time in Ireland to know that the British still preserve all sorts of traditions that the rest of the world has let slip away: one of the benefits, he supposes, of nearly a thousand years of relative stability.

"Granted, the profession itself has, as I said, changed over the centuries. For most heralds, they're little more than glorified historians and clerks." And he's enjoying the quiet of such, for the most part. He rather thinks his next lifetime, he'll be an intelligence agent again. It's an intellectual challenge as much as a physical one, and he almost misses it.

"Heralds used to be spies, didn't they?" Michael asks, curious to see whether Charbonneau's version of history matches with the one he was taught at Langley. He, personally, is glad that modern spies are allowed to carry weapons -- though a gun isn't always a guarantee of safety. He'd been armed the entire time he'd been in the Ukraine, and he'd still ended up left for dead a foot or more underground.

"Among a wide variety of other jobs a herald could be called upon to perform, yes." He nods. "They also served as diplomats, couriers, battlefield reporters, referees, masters of ceremony, and historians." A herald had to be a generalist, in other words, and he's done well to keep most of his skills, even if some of them might rust a little while others are honed a little sharper by constant use.

"Sort of a master of all trades, then." Michael lets himself relax back onto his towel. "I remember learning a little bit about the subject while I was in the army -- mostly, I remember being told that the battle of Agincourt was subject to the decisions of heralds. Clearly, that's gone the way of the dinosaur, but how much of the rest of it is still applicable today?"

Haerviu keeps his reaction to the mention of Agincourt purely mental by force of long practice, though even now it brings back memories of blood and death. "Little of it, actually. They're still historians, and they still have a role in the creation of arms in Britain, as well as being masters of ceremony in some situations, but little more. Far more specialized than they once were."

Michael nods. He's starting to get drowsy again despite his interest in the conversation, thanks to the warmth of the sun and the constant sound of the waves. The ocean has an almost Pavlovian effect on him: no matter how bad his nerves, an hour or two spent listening to the surf will relax him, at least a little bit. "At least I know who to talk to, in the unlikely event that I'm ever granted a coat of arms." The idea makes him smile. Even if the American government were in the habit of creating titles, the chances that he'd be given one would be nonexistent. That kind of public reward would do more harm than good, both to his career and to his continued state of good health.

"Or if you ever need to find out who belongs to a coat of arms, or what coat of arms belongs to a particular person or family," he adds, smiling a bit. "Which is a larger part of my job description, actually. I'm a herald, not a King of Arms." And he hasn't been since he was the Montjoye King of Arms for Charles VI of France. It just hasn't had the appeal since then, with the job becoming less of the major role it once had been.

"That's not much more likely to come up in my line of work than the other," Michael says, the smile he can hear in Charbonneau's voice prompting one of his own. "But I'll be sure to keep it in mind."

"Perhaps not this lifetime, but maybe the next one." It's as good a time as any to bring Immortality into the conversation, with Michael relaxing in the sun. "It's never advisible to keep the same job from one to the next, particularly with the world getting smaller and smaller, it seems. Too easy for someone to remember you from the lifetime before, and making connections that can have devestating consequences."

Michael frowns, propping himself back up on one elbow. If Charbonneau's English weren't as fluent as his own, he'd put the man's words down to an error in translation. It sounds as if he's talking about cover identities, though Michael hadn't thought him involved in espionage. It could be an attempt at drawing him out -- Charbonneau has done him the favor of not asking any direct questions -- but he doesn't think that he's done or said anything that would make the Frenchman think him anything more than the average American tourist, taking some time from the rat race to relax before heading back to an office somewhere. "Sorry?" he says, mostly because he can't think of anything else to say.

Not altogether surprising that what he's said doesn't particularly sound like it makes sense; for a mortal, it wouldn't, and often that applies to new Immortals as well. Although, he's not certain just what Michael's done in his mortal life that he's not at all agitated about being dead. Perhaps a job that allows him enough isolation from those around him that no one noticed when he died. "You've probably not had anyone asking why you're not aging yet, then. You'll have to change lives sooner or later. Or someone will start to ask questions you can't answer, and you don't want them attempting to find out on their own."

Michael blinks, startled. Charbonneau hadn't seemed insane: in fact, with the exception of his last few remarks, he'd seemed to be one of the saner people Michael has encountered in the past few years. 

"I'll keep that in mind," he says, summoning up a smile and wondering how rude it would be to excuse himself and leave. He spends enough time at work dealing with people whose sanity is questionable, and doesn't want to do the same while on vacation.

Shaking his head at the disbelief he thinks he can see lurking behind the smile, Haerviu studies the sand a long moment before reaching out for a shell that looks to still have a sharp edge not yet blunted by the waves. "If you don't understand what I'm trying to tell you, no, you won't."

He checks the point before shifting, consciously relaxing before he drives the point of the shell into his own calf. Aware of the pain, and the blood welling up around the shell for a moment before his quickening knits the flesh back together with a tingle like static over his skin.

Michael jerks back, one hand reaching under his towel for the knife he's stashed there before he realizes that Charbonneau isn't trying to hurt *him*. Then he's too busy staring to do anything, even to worry that he's betrayed himself as something beyond the ordinary. Compared to Charbonneau, he's about as ordinary as it gets. "How --"

The reach for a weapon makes Haerviu think that perhaps Michael's job is perhaps more dangerous than one would think at first glance. It's a gesture that wouldn't have been amiss in someone like Henry, six centuries ago, though then it wouldn't have been aborted quite so quickly.

"Because of what I am. And what I have no doubt you are as well." He nods to Michael's towel, and the weapon no doubt stashed under there - a knife, he'd think. "You've the means to see for yourself, if you don't want to risk what I've done." Pausing for a moment, he smiles briefly, and then tells Michael which hotel he's staying in, and the room. "When you've questions, come talk to me."

Michael watches Charbonneau go, waiting until he's out of sight before letting himself think about what he's just seen and heard. Charbonneau seems convinced that Michael will heal just as miraculously as he had, which is ridiculous -- but less ridiculous than it would have been before the mess in the Ukraine. Michael shoves away the memories of fighting frantically through earth and plastic, and instead picks up the shell Charbonneau had used to cut himself. It's still red with -- Michael sniffs it -- yes, that's definitely blood, and he stares at it for a long moment before reaching under the blanket for his knife.

Feeling like ten kinds of idiot, he presses his thumb against the blade, which is sharp enough that blood wells up from the wound almost immediately. He's still looking at it when the injury begins to heal, and the shock of it is profound enough that he almost drops the knife. Instead, he wipes it clean and puts it aside, staring blindly at his uninjured thumb. Then, very deliberately, he gets to his feet and gathers his things. He needs answers, and Charbonneau has promised to provide them.

Charbonneau's hotel is easy enough to find, as is his room. Michael gets dizzy again going down the hallway, but ignores it. He stands outside for another long moment, then lifts his hand and knocks.

Haerviu's already most of the way to the door before Michael knocks, the towel he'd been using on his hair after a quick shower forgotten when he feels the approaching presence of another Immortal. He checks the peep-hole, and relaxes slightly, letting the point of his sword drop slightly. "One moment, Michael."

He sets the sword back on the bed before pulling on a pair of loose trousers, having not expected Michael quite so soon. Only once he's clothed does he open the door, stepping aside to let Michael into his hotel room. "I didn't think you'd have tried to confirm what I told you so soon."

Michael shrugs, stepping inside and looking around. The sword is unexpected, but he doesn't ask. Either it has something to do with his newfound ability, in which case it will be explained, or it doesn't -- in which case it's none of his business. 

"I don't believe in waiting unless the circumstances require patience," he says. He doesn't bother to camoflauge his glance around the room as mere curiosity. Charbonneau has shared something that he usually keeps to himself, and professional courtesy requires Michael to do the same. Besides, he wants to know whether or not Charbonneau will know what he's seeing. He wants to know how much of a threat the man is.

The way Michael's looking around the room is reminiscent of a soldier, or a modern intelligence officer. Or simply a man who's utterly paranoid and had the training to assess a room for escape routes and threats at some point. Haerviu's willing to wager that either of the former is more likely than the latter.

"An attitude I am familiar with, though I find my current persona doesn't have much need to move as quickly as I do at times." He shrugs, closing the door, and going to pick up the towel he'd dropped earlier. His hair is still wet, and he goes to continue drying his hair, trusting instinct and other senses to make up for muffling his hearing and restricting his line of sight. "Jeannot doesn't make enemies easily."

The concept is one that Michael is more than familiar with. He has several identities that have acquired lives and personalities that are entirely their own, and while it can occasionally be disorienting, it's part and parcel of being a spy. 

"That's a good trait to have," he says neutrally. He's still off-balance, though as the dizziness seems to have faded almost completely, it's more a matter of confusion than physical sensation. He makes a circuit of the room, looking at everything without touching anything, but stays away from the bed out of politeness.

"Yes," he says simply, tossing the towel into the bathroom once he's gotten the worst of the water out of his hair. "That ability to heal only manifests after your first death, provided it's sufficiently violent, and is only one of the aspects of the quickening. You wouldn't happen to recall how long ago you died, would you?"

"As far as I know, I never have." Michael perches on the arm of one of the chairs, giving himself a good view of both door and windows. "I came damn close about two weeks ago, but I didn't *die*." The memory is enough to make him shudder: for a moment, he can feel the weight of the plastic pressing down over his nose and mouth, suffocating him, trapping his limbs, holding him down -- he shoves it away from him, locking it firmly away. "I blacked out once or twice, but there's a big difference."

"At some point, you have died. Violently, and probably near enough to instantaneously that you didn't register that what hit you was a killing blow. Especially since you woke back up, and no one expects to return from the dead the first time." Haerviu's voice is firm, and almost flat, accepting no argument to the contrary. "It won't take nearly so well after this, save someone cutting off your head. That, you can't come back from."

Michael takes a deep breath, then exhales. "That explains a few things. I thought I'd been deliberately buried alive." For some reason, knowing that he hadn't been takes some of the horror out of the memory, though nothing will ever make him sanguine about tight spaces ever again. It also explains the sword. 

"On the beach, you said I was going to stop aging?" He wants to make sure his memory is accurate on that point, since at the time, he'd mostly been concerned by Charbonneau's apparent psychotic break.

"You already have." He nods anyway, to underline that bit of information. "Your quickening heals you, prevents you from becoming ill with most ordinary diseases, and makes any death you suffer temporary so long as your head is still attached to your body. It also prevents you from having children of your own flesh and blood, gives you warning of other Immortals nearby, and extends your life indefinately."

Michael lifts both eyebrows at the flood of information, and lets himself slide off the arm of the chair and into the chair proper. "I'm *immortal*," he says flatly. It's not something he can easily wrap his mind around, despite what he's seen and felt: in fact, the idea is enough to make him laugh. "God. I've spent most of my life expecting to check out early, and now I'm *immortal*."

"So long as you keep your head," Haerviu reminds Michael quietly, watching him with a steady, penetrating gaze. "Without some amount of training - to use a sword like the one I carry - you won't keep it longer than it takes for you to accidentally encounter a head-hunter." He knows it's an awful lot of information to take in at once, and he's sure he'll have to remind Michael of some of it again later, but at least he'll have some of it.

Michael nods. It makes as much sense as does finding himself immortal -- that is to say, not a whole hell of a lot, but he has to accept it anyway. Arguing about whether or not something is true when it manifestly is has always struck him as supremely pointless.

"I'm not unfamiliar with bladed weapons, though I've never used an actual sword," he says. Weapons-training is familiar ground, and an easier place to start than the whys and wherefores of the whole thing. "How did this happen?" he asks. "Is it some kind of government experiment?"

"No." Haerviu settles onto the bed next to his sword, bringing his feet up so he can lean against the headboard. "I watched the Roman Empire rise and fall, and my teacher is older yet than that. Whatever Immortality is, it has been around far longer than any modern government."

"Christ," Michael mutters, mostly to himself. He's learned to accept a level of weird that most civilians couldn't tolerate, but there's a big difference between the sort of weird he usually encounters and sitting in a room with a man who's seen two thousand years go by. "This makes my life seem *normal*." Hearing what he's just said, he blinks and amends his statement. "Rather, it makes my life up until now seem normal." He lets out a breath that's not quite a laugh. "I never thought I'd say *that*." He lets himself wonder over it for another few seconds, then nods. What is, is. He can either accept it, or -- from what Charbonneau has said -- get himself killed in a hurry.

The acceptance is a relief, in some ways, as there's always a concern that a new Immortal won't take it very well. More so now, he thinks, than when people still didn't just believe in the supernatural, but accepted that it was just a part of the landscape. It didn't make them any less inclined to accept Immortals if they were mortal, but it at least meant that new Immortals weren't as likely to reject it as a possibility altogether.

"How long do you have before your employers will expect you back at work?" It will give him a time-frame in which he has to drill the basics of using a sword into Michael before his training might well be more sporadic.

"At least three weeks." Michael shrugs. "They're good about that kind of thing, especially after near-death experiences." Realizing that there hadn't been anything 'near' about it still throws him a little bit. "I can take more time if I need it, too. It's one of the benefits of not actually working for anyone directly."

"I expect they'd start to become suspicious if you took a year or more, though," he points out with a faint smile. "We'll see how much I can fit into three months, and from there... well, if they believe you alive and mortal, I don't want to risk your continuing employment."

"Neither do I," Michael admits, returning Charbonneau's smile. He's never wanted to do anything else, and doesn't want to imagine what life would be like were he to lose his job. It's more of a calling than anything else. "I'm already rated with most things that hold an edge, and I've got three black belts, so I'm not entirely new to the concept."

"Then three months should be enough to at least allow you to hold your own against others who are new to this. I wouldn't wish to risk you against an older Immortal without several years of practice and training." Though a gun should make up for most of the shortcomings against an older Immortal, if Michael has the chance to get to it. So long as he doesn't then take the other Immortal's head, there shouldn't be any lasting issues save for a very cranky Immortal.

Michael nods. He wouldn't want to go up against someone with centuries more experience after a mere three months' study. One of the things he's learned is the difference between knowing how to use a weapon and being an expert with it.

"How often does it come up?" he asks. "Am I likely to run into... headhunters on a regular basis?"

Haerviu shrugs. "Some are lucky, and never meet one. Others are very unlucky and meet one before they even encounter an Immortal willing to teach them just what that means. A head-hunter is simply an Immortal who deliberately hunts others of our kind to take their head, and with it, their quickening. It's not a necessary thing, merely a game that some take as the point of our existance. I would prefer to think we're here simply to live, as anyone else is."

"Some game," Michael says -- though he can't really say anything too harsh, as espionage has been called the Great Game for centuries now. "I'm guessing that they're not going to take 'I'm not interested' for an answer?" It's not really a question. "Why do they do it?"

"Different reasons. Some because they don't know anything else, some because they believe there can be only one. Some because they're bored, some because they're angry. The reasons are as varied as those who hunt. Just because they're Immortal and they engage in the same destructive behavior doesn't make them any less human." His voice is gentle and patient, not censuring, and he shrugs his shoulders in a gesture meant to convey his lack of knowledge as well. "I can tell you that taking a quickening can be an intense pleasure, if not unalloyed by pain, and that you will find it comes with memories and thoughts that are not your own. And perhaps that influences some of those who hunt, as well."

"Quickening?" From the way Charbonneau says it, it means something more than it usually does.

"The energy that heals you, brings you back from the dead. It's the core of what we are, and when an Immortal's head is taken, their quickening transfers to the nearest Immortal, provided one is within range. If there is none nearby, the quickening is lost, and with it, all their experiences, their memories and power. A power that builds over centuries and with the taking of heads." More reasons for some Immortals to hunt others, but still never enough of a reason for him to do so.

The more Michael hears about Immortality, the stranger it gets, though it does make a sort of twisted logical sense. The idea of getting someone else's memories is disturbing, but it certainly beats the idea of someone else getting his. Clearly, he's going to have to learn how to use a sword, and to focus on learning it as hard as he's ever focused on anything in his life.

"Why offer to teach me?" he asks after a moment. "Not that I don't appreciate the offer. I'm just curious."

"Because not to do so would be sending you to your early death, and I don't like doing that with mortals, much less another Immortal. We aren't really common, maybe a few tens of thousand of us in a population of billions of mortals. To condemn any of us to death is something I cannot do." He pauses, watching Michael.

"Not that I have any qualms about killing one of us, should that individual challenge me with the intent of taking my head." No more than he really had any qualms about killing a mortal, should that save the lives of others, regardless of if one of those lives is that of his current persona or not.

Michael nods in understanding. He's always had much the same attitude when it comes to taking life: he'll do it if he must, but he doesn't like it. 

"Well, whatever your reasons, thank you." Michael rubs a hand over his face. "This is not what I was expecting from my vacation."

"Is a holiday ever what we expect of it?" Haerviu asks rhetorically, before shaking his head to forstall any answer from Michael. "We'll begin in the morning, with the dawn. I do not have another sword with me, but I may know where to acquire one before the week is out. Until it arrives, you shall observe, and may try the exercises I'll set you with my own blade."

His sword is a simple broadsword, three feet from pommel to tip, and weighted specifically for him; he doubts it's anything nearing ideal for Michael, but he can find a sword that should be sufficiently balanced to serve until he can take Michael to find a sword-smith who still makes blades that can be sharpened to the vicious edge that his own holds.

So much for vacation, Michael thinks, but doesn't say. Charbonneau is doing him an enormous favour by offering to teach him: the last thing he wants to do is make the man think him either lazy or ungrateful. 

"Do you run in the mornings?" he asks. If Charbonneau doesn't, Michael will have to get up even earlier, so as to get his own run in before training starts.

"I prefer to run in the evenings, after the sun sets, and before dinner. In the morning, I swim." Even in places where there have been shark attacks, he's found no danger in the practice - he has his theories about that, but keeps them to himself, as they are a tangent to the discussion that Michael doesn't need at the moment.

Michael nods. He likes swimming for exercise, but has never been able to make it a permanent part of his own workout, largely because he's never sure if he'll be somewhere with a large enough body of water. Running, on the other hand, can be done almost anywhere. 

"I skipped mine this morning. If you're planning on running this evening, maybe I could tag along?" It will give him a chance to judge Charbonneau's fitness. The man certainly looks to be in shape -- Michael had noticed that much on the beach, and approved on several levels -- but even lean muscle doesn't always guarantee stamina. Besides, if he's going to be sparring with the man, he wants to get the chance to see how Charbonneau moves.

"You're welcome to do so." Haerviu nods his approval of Michael's desire to run with him this evening. It will give him a chance to watch how Michael moves, as much as it will give Michael the chance to do the same with him.

"In that case, I'll forego the shower I was considering until after we get back. How far do you usually go?" Michael has been running a five-mile loop since his arrival, two and a half miles out and two and a half back. He usually does seven miles -- unless he's actually in the field, in which case he limits his workout to the privacy of his residence, wherever that happens to be. Running for the sake of it is a very Western habit, and the instructors at Langley are careful to point that out.

"Jeannot's run is a three-mile loop." Haerviu lets his lips curl up in an amused smile. "I would prefer to keep going until we're both ready to call it an night and get a shower and dinner." However long that is, and whichever of them calls it first.

Michael laughs. "If you think you can run me into the ground, you're more than welcome to try." He leans back, grinning at Charbonneau. "I should warn you, though -- I'm ex-Special Forces, and I've made a point of not letting myself go." He tips his head to the side, frowning slightly as an idea occurs to him. "Will being Immortal make a difference there? It should -- the small tears in the muscle will heal instantly, after all."

"It will." He pauses, returning Michael's grin. "I was a warrior when I was mortal, and spent my entire life constantly on the move. I've been a soldier, a herald, and many other things over the years, but rarely anything that involves being sedentary for too long at a time. I'm not concerned that one or the other of us will run the other into the ground."

"It might be fun trying, though," Michael points out. He can think of some other things that would definitely be fun to try, but he has no guarantee that Charbonneau would agree, and no desire to offend the man into leaving him on his own before he's learned how to use a sword. In a way, it's a shame: if this had turned out to be a simple conversation after all, he'd have tried to take it further. The value of what Charbonneau can teach him, though, far outweighs the value of a few hours between the sheets, no matter how enjoyably spent.

"Perhaps." Haerviu shrugs, swinging his legs off the bed. "Shall we see how far we get before we call it an evening?" He's looking forward to a real challenge in endurance, having not had that against most those he's run with. And he's only really taken it up in the last century - before, he's had horses to ride, or he's had his swimming to keep his endurance up. Or even simply training with mortal soldiers.

"Just let me go and get my shoes," Michael says, grinning. "And a shirt." He supposes that sunburn is no longer an issue, but he does need something he can use to cover his gun. He's not sure what the law is about carrying concealed in Greece, but he doesn't particularly care, either. Even before he'd become Immortal, he'd had enemies to worry about. Now that he has to worry about strangers as well, there's no way he's going anywhere without a pistol. "I'll meet you in the lobby in say, five minutes?"

Haerviu nods, following Michael to the door of the room to let him out. "Five minutes, then."

~ ~~ ~

In the end, they made a seven mile loop, keeping a pace that made talking difficult, though not impossible. Half a mile's walk made a nice cooldown period, and by the time Michael got around to asking Charbonneau if he felt like sharing a meal, he'd managed to run out most of his nerves. Telling himself sternly that there's no need for nerves because he's not going to flirt with Charbonneau, let alone proposition him, he grins when the man accepts, and excuses himself for a much-needed shower.

Forty-five minutes later, clean and changed into a pair of lightweight suit pants and a button-down cotton shirt, he's sitting at the hotel bar and waiting for the dizzy spell that apparently signifies another Immortal's presence. When it hits, he turns around: seeing Charbonneau at the entrance, he gets up and crosses the room to join him.

"They have a table available here, unless you'd rather eat somewhere else," he says. "Did you have a good shower?" As soon as he asks, he wishes he hadn't, if only because his mind decides to conjure up an image of Charbonneau taking that shower, and he doesn't need the additional temptation.

Haerviu gives Michael an amused smile, and nods. "I did. Dinner here, I think, would be better than attempting to locate something else after a run like this evening's. A habit to acquire, eating close to home, for now. It will make the aftermath of a day's training easier to cope with." He'd been thinking as he showered, and while he can't exactly take three months away from his job, that doesn't mean Michael can't accompany him to Britain after his holiday here is over, and he can train him around the work he absolutely must do. It will mean leaving Michael to practice on his own for several hours at a time, but he thinks it managable.

"I've always been a fan of room service," Michael admits, signalling to a hovering waiter. Their table is, thankfully, located well away from the door and from the kitchen, but with a good view of both. Michael would like to be able to relax and enjoy his meal, and he won't be able to do either if he can't see who's coming in and out of the dining room. Michael orders a refill of his vodka, and lifts a questioning eyebrow at Charbonneau.

Ordering a local red wine, Haerviu settles back in his chair, perusing the menu to decide what he wants to eat. Something to complement the wine, certainly, and he muses on how food has changed over the centuries as he tries to decide what he wants to eat. "Room service has its advantages, and its disadvantages," he finally replies to Michael's comment, watching Michael over the edge of his menu. "Depending upon your reasons for ordering in."

Michael discards the first response that comes to mind, and the second, keeping his eyes firmly on the menu and hoping that he got enough sun today to cover his faint flush. 

"I'm a fan of plain laziness, myself," he says, smiling. "On occasion, anyway." He only indulges while on vacation, and even then, he makes a point of keeping it within limits -- but it doesn't stop him from daydreaming.

Haerviu chuckles, smiling as he returns his attention to the menu; making his choice after a moment, and closing it to wait for the waiter. "Laziness might be enjoyable for a short time, but I find I am too easily bored after a spate of nothing to do, and must find myself a distraction before I lose my mind."

"If I indulged more than once every year or so, I'd probably hate it," Michael acknowledges. "After the last eighteen months, though, I'm more inclined to it than I have been in a while." He puts his own menu aside and takes a sip of his drink. He'd hated vodka once, but his time in Eastern Europe had given him a taste for it after a while. "Of course, I haven't had to find two thousand years' worth of ways to keep busy yet." Apparently, he's determined to make a fool out of himself -- that, or his mind has decided to stay firmly in the gutter, because now he's wondering just how much difference two thousand years' experience makes in bed

"Two thousand and then some. It's meant I've been... many things, if not everything a man might be. I do tend toward professions that suit my skills and temperment, after all." That he has a wider variety now than he once did is only due to the seperation of jobs that were once one and the same. And his steadily growing apathy toward being a soldier.

"Doctor, lawyer, indian chief?" Michael asks, smiling. The waiter reappears to take their orders and collect their menus, and once he's gone, Michael continues, "I've never wanted to do anything else," he admits. He's good at being a spy, even brilliant at it, and the thought that he'll have to stop at some point and find something else isn't exactly a happy one

"Soldier, priest, hermit," Haerviu counters, shrugging. "I've been other things - including a herald when it was far more than the job is now - over the centuries, but soldier and priest I keep coming back to. If not always of the same religion." It's been some time since he's been a priest, as well, but not as long as it's been since he's been a soldier.

"I was a soldier for a few years." He'd enjoyed it, too, but he's better suited to espionage, both by temperment and inclination. He can take orders, but he doesn't really like to. "I've never really been the religious type, though." He'd gone to church with his mother every Sunday, but not for the sake of the services. Staying at home would have meant spending the day with his father, whereas by going to church he could ensure that he and Nate and his mother were all out of reach of the man's ready fists.

Later, he and Nate had taken to skipping church altogether, spending Sundays at the beach and (in Nate's case, anyway) watching the girls. Michael had known even then that, though he could appreciate female beauty, he preferred men. It's not something he'd ever told Nate, though: Nate tended to give away Michael's secrets to their father in order to get out of beatings, and though Michael didn't blame him, he'd soon learned not to tell Nate things he didn't want his father to find out. A preference for other men had definitely fallen into that category. His father hadn't been religious either, but he'd had definite opinions on homosexuality.

"I don't have the calling to spend my entire long life as such, though I know an Immortal who's been a monk for centuries." And while he doesn't always agree with all of any religion's teachings, he can at least hold to their tenents enough to play the part, and play it with conviction. "It's enough, though, to spend a few decades cloistered, or as an itenerant priest, when I need to settle my soul between one life and another."

It's not an impulse that Michael understands, though perhaps he will once he's been around for a couple centuries -- and isn't that a mind-blowing thought? There's one question answered, though -- if Charbonneau is religious enough to spend decades at a time in holy orders, the chances that he'll be willing to join Michael in bed -- or let Michael into his -- are almost certainly slim to none. It's a disappointment, but good to know. It won't keep him from wanting the man, but it will keep him from letting that want show.

The hint of resignation that flickers across Michael's face makes Haerviu wonder what he's thinking, but not enough to ask. Instead, he shrugs, and looks up when the waiter comes over with their dinner. "I've not been such in many lifetimes," he adds as an afterthought, slicing into the lamb he'd ordered. It's tender and delicious, and he makes a mental note to remember to cook lamb once he's home a little more often. He's forgotten how much he enjoys it.

Michael's own food is good enough that he's silent for the first few minutes, enjoying the flavours and textures of the meal. He can cook, but not like this: the food he makes is edible, but not necessarily enjoyable. It's pleasant, if mildly surprising, to realize that he has time to learn, now. 

"What did you do most recently?" he asks, deliberately trying to slow himself down. If he's not careful, he eats like a soldier, and what's appropriate for a mess hall is not appropriate for a fine restaurant.

"I was a diplomat in the employ of the British crown." And the habits of security of that life are hard to break, if he were willing to try. Which, at the moment, he's not. Let history wear that persona thin and fade it into history before he talks about it. Though there is one of his lifetimes that he cannot shake, immortalized as it has been.

"The respectable side of espionage," Michael murmurs, smiling. Diplomats and their pouches have come in handy more than once in his career, especially when it came to smuggling information back to the States. "I've had occasion to be grateful to British diplomats more than once." There are some countries with whom the United States has no diplomatic ties, and the British Embassy has repeatedly been instrumental in getting information out. On one memorable occasion, it had been a sanctuary when he'd badly needed one.

"Quite." Haerviu quirks up one corner of his mouth in amusement. "Since the evolution of the modern diplomat, I think." That the British diplomatic service has proven useful to spies of theirs and their allies more than once is little surprise.

"There are diplomats, and then there are diplomats," Michael points out. In any American embassy, a large number of the personnel are going to be serving intelligence officers, since diplomatic immunity is a good way to ensure that, if caught, one's people aren't summarily executed. Some of them, though, are State Department functionaries, and most of those are worse than useless. Michael expects that it's mostly the same everywhere. "Still, from the less-respectable side of the service to the respectable side, my thanks."

Chuckling, Haerviu reaches for his wine. "Oh, I haven't always been the respectable agent, Mr. Weston. It is, after all, only one skill set I refined as a herald centuries ago." Though then, he still had been on the 'respectable' side of espionage. If you called paying men to betray their leaders, and sometimes not even needing that much to induce betrayal respectable.

"Michael, please." Inviting Charbonneau to use his first name doesn't count as breaking his resolve not to flirt, he tells himself. "No one calls me Mr. Westen." Anyone who uses his last name drops the Mister, but most people just use his first name. Actually, most people use an alias, though they don't generally know it.

Haerviu nods. "Michael, then." He pauses, taking a sip of his wine, before tipping his head very slightly toward Michael. "For now, Jeannot will suit. I'd prefer not to share the name I was given as a mortal with the world. It's old enough that it marks my age."

"Jeannot is fine," Michael assures him. "I'm familiar with the need to hide one's name. Mentioning mine in Russia will attract all *kinds* of unwanted attention." He's heard rumours that they think he's some kind of scare story invented by the CIA for the sole purpose of scaring the Russian intelligence community, though he's not sure how true those rumours are. It's not something he'd generally mention, but Jeannot's age is clearly sensitive information, and he's a believer in quid pro quo. "If you don't mind, though, I might ask some questions once we're no longer in public." History has always interested him, and the chance to hear it from someone who had lived it is more than he can pass up if he doesn't have to do so. "If you don't want to answer, you're more than welcome to tell me to mind my own business."

"So long as it's not anything from the last century or so, there's little you can ask me that I will be utterly unwilling to answer." He takes another bite of his dinner, savoring it a moment. "Although some parts of my life would require more wine to liberate tales of than others."

Such as his last time as Montjoye herald. The details of that are ones he's shared only with Darius at confession, and has heartily wished a playwright to an unpleasent fate for setting the entire wretched period to paper in a manner that kept the flames of one man's brilliance seen for centuries, and didn't allow an enemy herald the welcome oblivion of obscurity.

"I'll keep that in mind," Michael smiles, taking a sip of the water he'd ordered to go with his supper. If he does decide to get Jeannot drunk, though, he'll have to make sure that he himself stays sober. The man is entirely too attractive for Michael to trust himself not to make some kind of move on him, and the consequences of offending him would be potentially fatal.

A small smile crosses Haerviu's face, and he takes several more mouthfuls of his dinner, and another generous sip of wine before he speaks again. "Would you be willing to elaborate on why mentioning your name in Russia will garner unwanted attention? Or would that be a question to save for a more private venue?"

Michael glances around, but as no one is in earshot, he decides it's safe enough. "I can share, though perhaps if we switched languages?" He makes the suggestion in Russian, since Jeannot has already said that he speaks it. "Besides, it's a story that should be told in Russian -- and with another vodka." He signals for a refill, and waits until it's been delivered before continuing. "I used to hate the stuff," he admits, taking a sip. "If you've ever operated in Eastern Europe, though, you know that it's impossible to avoid drinking it without attracting the same sort of attention you just mentioned."

"Much to my regret at times." Following the language switch is a simple matter, and he takes another sip of his wine in conscious echo of Michael's sip of vodka. "I take it you operate extensively in Eastern Europe?"

"Most of the time. I've done some work in the Middle East, and in Belfast, but Eastern Europe is my main theatre of operations." He grins. "Rumour has it that Russian intelligence thinks I'm a Company fairy tale, invented to scare nine kinds of hell out of them." The Company has been a nickname for the CIA since its inception, and attracts much less attention than would using those initials.

"Sort of a boogeyman for Russian spies. The more sensible ones seem to think that my name is a code for an entire team." It's not bragging if it's true. Besides, he's *never* gotten to share stories before, even inside the intelligence community -- there's too much worry over who's cleared for what. This is the rarest of opportunities for a spy -- the chance to tell the truth.

"This last op put the icing on the cake, though. There was a Spetznatz team, trying to smuggle a nuclear warhead out through Kiev onto the black market. There were all kinds of potential buyers, which I'm sure doesn't surprise you. The Israelis clued us in to the sale -- one of their moles in Hamas found out and passed the information along. At any rate, when I left Kiev there were six missing Spetznatz soldiers, and the auction that was scheduled to take place never did."

It had been a particularly neat piece of work, and if he'd felt guilty over the thought of deliberately killing six people, that guilt had vanished abruptly after he'd woken up buried. "It probably helped that they'd already -- well, killed me, for lack of a better way of putting it, and buried me for good measure."

Haerviu nods, impressed. For all that he's seen men pull off feats that would normally take several, each time it's still fascinating to see how they manage it. And that Michael has the skill and talent for that should make his continued life interesting as well - because once word gets out about his being Immortal to that community, Haerviu has no doubt there will be Immortals who just have to test themselves against Michael. Even before he's trained, and that will push Haerviu's own skill and talent as well.

Michael smiles again, and takes another swallow of his vodka, pushing aside his plate and the last few bites of his dinner. "Anyway -- that's why I don't travel under my own name in Eastern Europe. Or very often at all, to be honest. Vacations tend to be the one exception to the rule."

"That habit will be a good one to keep, even once you have to change lives. Having that sort of legend even while mortal will make your Immortal life potentially very interesting indeed." Haerviu finished the last of his own meal, watching Michael for a long moment. "And I can't imagine it not spreading into the Immortal community, as there are others who are involved in governments of various countries, and other occupations which would bring them into contact with that legend. One of them is bound to discover, also, that you're no longer mortal."

That's enough to make Michael grimace. Telling war stories to one other person is one thing. Having an entire group of people, most of whom he doesn't know and who also qualify as potential enemies, aware of what he's capable of -- that's another thing entirely. The only upside is that most of the people who hear the stories will think they're exaggerated, and will be very surprised to find out otherwise -- at least, he hopes so.

Taking a last sip of his wine, Haerviu settles back in his chair again. "With any luck at all, they'll not figure this out for months. I won't hope for more than a year free of that sort of discovery, though. I'm not particularly inclined to find myself facing those who'd like to test themselves against you while I'm still training you - and I will, I warn you now, step between you and any challenger that I can until I think you're trained enough to stand on your own."

"I'd rather not face someone with centuries more experience over swords," Michael admits, then smiles. "Which is why I wasn't planning on it, even before you said that." A large part of what makes him so very good at his job is that he's an expert at forcing people to meet him on his terms, and on ground he's chosen. "I'm not very good at letting other people fight for me."

"Once you're trained, you'll have to fight your own battles, so there's little worry then. It's before that - and not just the next three months. Three months is enough to give you basics, perhaps enough that you can face another new Immortal. I'd still rather if anyone came after you, that you find a way to avoid fighting them, and send them my direction. Or call me, and I'll take care of matters."

He only hopes that's enough to keep Michael alive while he trains him further around whatever missions he's sent on - he has little expectation that he'll be able to accompany Michael on most of them. Not with his current persona, and he doesn't have one set up that's quite to the point where it would be old enough and trained enough to perhaps get into the game as Michael's backup.

"I'll find a way to avoid fighting them -- that's not really an issue." He's only once been forced into standing and fighting on ground that wasn't of his choosing. It hadn't been an enjoyable experience, and he has no plans to repeat it any time soon. He's not so sure about sending them to find Jeannot. It strikes him as being -- not cowardly, exactly, but certainly ineffectual.

"But you have objections to sending them to me?" He raises an eyebrow, curious. There is, of course, the fact that teacher and student can be seperated by what would have been days and weeks, if not months, of travel in the past, but that distance is far more rapidly traversed with modern aircraft.

"I'm not really a fan of letting other people find solutions to my problems -- or *be* the solution to my problems," Michael admits. He doesn't add that his reluctance stems in part from having learned early in life that others can't always be relied upon. The reasons aren't anywhere near as important as the results -- and besides, in Jeannot's case, he doubts they apply. It doesn't make him any happier about possibly risking someone else's life to save his own.

After a moment, Haerviu nods, though his expression doesn't change. "You don't have to like it, Michael. But until I'm content with your training, I don't intend to be terribly far, despite the necessity of you returning to your job after the initial period. And until then, any challenges that would be directed at you are, by custom and tradition, to be directed at me. Those who will not abide by this when it is mentioned you are still my student are very stupid, and likely very young and ill-trained."

"In that case, I shouldn't have much trouble dealing with them," Michael points out. He's not used to thinking of himself as young, though in the new company he's found himself in he *is* -- that's something to which he'll have to adjust. That youth doesn't have to make him stupid, though -- and while he may not know how to use a sword, he's anything but ill-trained.

"Perhaps not, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't direct them to me, rather than fighting them yourself," Haerviu replies patiently. "And simply because they're ill-trained in the rules of the Game doesn't mean they're ill-trained in the use of a sword. Nor are all of those who will refuse to accept that you are a student necessarily young and ill-trained, but head-hunters who don't care. And they will be well-trained with a sword."

In Michael's opinion, that's the sort of situation that calls for the liberal application of high explosives, but he has the feeling that doing so would be against the rules that Jeannot has mentioned. "What rules would those be?" he asks. He needs to know the answer and hopefully providing that answer will get Jeannot to switch topics without pressing for a promise that Michael will feel obligated to keep.

"All fights are one-on-one, do not fight on Holy Ground, no use of projectile weapons. That you do not fight another Immortal's current student while their teacher yet lives is more a tradition than a rule, but those who do not abide by it in the long run tend to be the sort the rest of us with sense would prefer dead, and will challenge if they come sniffing around us or our students." Haerviu pins Michael with a sharp look, voice quiet and firm as he adds, "You will send those who challenge you to me until I am satisfied you have a chance to stand on your own."

Michael presses his lips together and looks irritably around for a way out of agreeing, but finding none, nods reluctantly. "With one exception," he says. "If they've attracted the attention of my superiors, or tangle themselves up in my work, I won't be sending them on to you."

"If they've done so, I will make no objection - and should I encounter any who do, I'll explain or deal with them as necessary." He'd mention that younger Immortals consider the use of explosives cheating, but those same younger Immortals think of a secondary weapon as cheating, and few of the older ones have the same opinion. Though most are still wary of explosives because of the risk to themselves as well as their target.

"Fair enough." Michael swallows the last of his vodka and leans back in his chair, trying to decide whether or not he wants to indulge in dessert. He's particularly fond of the way the Greeks make yogurt, and it's not as if he's going to be sitting around very much over the next few weeks. In the end, he decides against it -- he can always have yogurt with breakfast, after all -- and signals for the check. When it comes, he scribbles his room number on it and signs for both meals.

He has the money, even as Jeannot, to afford his own meals, but he makes no objection to Michael choosing to pay for both. After all, this isn't a few centuries ago, when he might have been expected to provide for everything for his student until he was capable of supporting himself. Not that he's going to make Michael pay for all of his own expenses, either.

"If you don't have anything else planned, I've a bottle of wine that I was told was excellent, and I don't particularly feel like drinking it alone." Smiling, Michael adds, "Besides, I seem to recall being promised a story or two."

Chuckling, Haerviu pushes back from the table. "I did indeed promise a few if provided with sufficient wine." He tilts his head toward Michael. "Lead the way."

Telling himself sternly to behave, Michael pushes back from the table and heads for the stairs. His room is on the second floor, and he only bothers with elevators if he's five or more floors up. The room itself is actually a suite -- one of the benefits of not technically working for anyone is that he's paid by the job rather than with a government salary -- and he ducks into the bedroom to grab the bottle of wine.

"Make yourself at home," he calls over his shoulder, then pauses, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. "What are you doing?" he asks himself, quietly enough that he won't be overheard, then shakes his head and returns to the livingroom.

Settling himself onto the couch, Haerviu looks around the room. Better than Jeannot could afford, certainly, if not entirely up to the standards of some of his past personas. Fine enough, though, for most of them, and good enough for him, even having grown accustomed to more comfort than he'd had in his mortal life. After all, if he could afford better, why keep himself in the sort of precarious circumstances he'd lived with then?

"They pay you well for your work," he comments quietly, a smile on his face as Michael comes back into the room.

"One of the best things about not being a government employee is not having to live on a government salary," Michael points out. A few moments' rummaging yields two wineglasses and a corkscrew, and Michael pours two glasses before handing one to Jeannot and claiming one of the armchairs. "It makes up for all the time I've spent in less than stellar accomodations while actually working."

"A sentiment I can well appreciate." He doesn't take a sip of the wine quite yet, giving it time to breathe before he tastes it. Watching Michael for a long moment before he offers, "Ask what you will, and I will answer what I may." Or desired to, since he's only as yet had a single glass of wine, and that with dinner.

"Your name would be a good place to start, and where you're from -- unless you object to the idea, anyway." Michael doesn't want to pry, but curiosity is one of his most basic personality traits. On top of that, he genuinely likes Jeannot, in a way that has nothing to do with what is, admittedly, a strong physical attraction.

"Haerviu - of which the closest modern equivalent is Harvey - and the Rhine river valley. My tribe was one that modern historians lump under the name 'Celt'." Haerviu shrugs, taking a careful sip of the wine, rolling it around on his tongue a moment. It's a long moment before he nods in approval, appreciating the wine. "I spent some time in Greece when I was very young, but never much appreciated it, as the locals tended not to much appreciate my existance. Most of my life has been spent in what's now called France, or in England - it's held a fascination for me for several centuries now."

"Do you mind if I ask why?" England's never done much for Michael, though he finds the history fascinating. Ireland, on the other hand.... He pushes Fiona's memory firmly back into the box in which it belongs and takes a sip of his wine. He's not really a wine person, though he knows enough to sound like one, but this bottle is surprisingly good.

"That's a story that requires I've had more wine than I have drank as yet." Not that he won't tell it, eventually, but that he prefers to be a little more inebriated before he does so. Too much, though, and he'll grow melancholy about the whole matter, and that won't be any better than not having anything to pad sharp-edged memories.

"Fair enough," Michael allows. "I've got a couple of those myself." He doesn't mention Fiona's name unless he's got more than a few shots under his belt, and he has to be absolutely smashed before he'll talk about Pavel, or even think about him. 

Haerviu sits quietly for a moment, sipping at his wine. He thinks another glass or two, and he might be willing to talk of the entire messy episode that was his stint as Montjoye. And why he's never been willing to be a King of Arms since, why England has become as much home as France, and everything else tied into that. What one mortal had done to his life that has echoed down five and a half centuries.

Michael kicks his shoes and socks off, then turns sideways in the chair so that his legs are draped over one arm and his head is resting on the other. It's not precisely elegant, but it is comfortable. "When were you last in Greece?" he asks, hoping to steer clear of what's clearly a complicated topic.

"1798, as a French soldier. It isn't nearly as much fun to spend time in a place when you're there in an official capacity." Haerviu shrugs one shoulder. "I didn't stay very long, as once again the locals didn't much appreciate my presence. Though at least this time they had good reason not to appreciate my existance in their land."

Michael knows all about unappreciative officials. The Russians hadn't been at *all* grateful to him for recovering their missing nuke. Frowning, he tries to remember what was going on in 1798. "Were you here with Napoleon?" He's studied military history, but with more of a focus on tactics than on dates, and on modern warfare rather than anything before 1900.

Haerviu nods, a smile crossing his face. "I was. And that particular lifetime died in 1812 in Russia. I don't think I've ever quite forgiven Napoleon that particular insult, for all that I was nothing more than a common soldier. Neither starving to death nor freezing are particularly enjoyable deaths."

Michael grimaces. "I can imagine." He can think of a lot of unpleasant fates, and that of a common soldier in an army invading Russia is pretty high up on his list. "The only time I've ever been part of an invasion force was Desert Storm in '91. I was out of the army by that point, but the Company sent some auxiliary support and, lucky me, I got tapped."

"Being part of an invasion force has long, however, been preferable to being one of those tasked to defend a place," he points out, tilting his wine glass slightly toward Michael. "Particularly a city in a seige, though I shall grant that being part of the army outside the walls hasn't been a good thing unless one has the fortune to survive in good enough health to sack the city afterward."

"Which sieges have you been involved in?" Michael asks. "Anything that made it into the history books?" He reaches for the wine bottle and tops up Haerviu's glass, then -- after a moment's pause -- tops up his own as well. Practice has enabled him to drink vodka like it's water, but anything else tends to go to his head like the inexperienced drinker he is. Still, he's only had half a glass, and he doesn't want Haerviu to think that Michael is trying to get him drunk.

"In which century, and in what capacity?" Haerviu quirks one corner of his mouth up in a wry smile as he sips at his refillled glass. "There have been several, and in various capacities - laying seige, defending, non-combatant. Not all of which have made history books that have survived, and not all of which I'm necessarily willing to discuss." Some he won't discuss with anyone who isn't old enough to have been around at the time, if simply because the world has changed, and younger Immortals or mortals don't always care to understand that difference.

"Pick one, then." Michael slides a little further down in his chair so that he can rest the wineglass on his stomach. It really is good stuff. Apparently the French know their wine, even if the Frenchman in question does happen to be their version of Delta Force and looks like he could break through a concrete wall with his *face*. "Or if you'd rather, I can tell you the story behind this bottle."

Waving his hand, Haerviu shifts to be a bit more comfortable. "I'll mull over which seige to describe while you tell me about the wine, if that suits you." He thinks some of the last ones before gunpowder seriously altered the way wars were fought and cities were fortified and held are probably the best, though he'll save Harfluer and Rouen and Paris for later. Another glass of wine.

"Before this last thing in the Ukraine," Michael says obligingly, "I was in Algeria. Technically, the French aren't supposed to be there -- you probably know that, though." He lets out a breath of laughter. "You probably remember when DeGaulle ordered the withdrawal." For some reason, that realization is stranger than the knowledge that Haerviu is older than the Roman Empire -- probably because the numbers are small enough for Michael to really *understand* them, rather than simply accepting them.

"Anyway, like many other former colonial powers, the French have had a hard time letting go. I was down there because we'd heard about a group of Islamic extremists who were trying to manufacture sarin gas out in the desert, with this idiot who'd finished his training at Langley *maybe* three weeks before that, and a small team of Navy SEALs who were supposed to help with the demolition when we actually found the place." He stops to take another sip of wine before continuing.

"Fortunately, the officer in charge of the SEALs was a guy I've known for more than a decade, and he's a little more flexible as far as his capabilities go than most. He and I ended up doing most of the tracking-down, while Junior stayed behind with the SEALs so that they could keep him from getting himself into trouble."

"Anyway -- two weeks in, Sam -- my friend -- and I got a tip that sent us fifty miles out into the desert. Turned out to be bogus, but while we were there, we ran into a group of DGSE guys -- that's French special forces -- who'd had their cover blown and were in some serious trouble with a pretty large group of the locals." It had been an ugly scene, the crowd snarling with fury and the French already battered, holding them at bay. It wouldn't have lasted much longer -- one of the DGSE guys had been bleeding, and the crowd wasn't at all far from becoming a mob.

"We did some fast talking, and somehow managed to convince these guys that we were there on behalf of their government to take the French into custody. Don't ask me how. I'm good at talking people into things, and so is Sam, but we were inspired that day." Another sip of wine, and he leans over to refill both glasses again.

"We got these guys back to our safehouse, and got them patched up and on their way out of the country, but before they left the man in charge -- he was huge, six seven, maybe, with a face like a slab of granite -- took me and Sam aside and promised us a bottle of vintage wine from his family's estate. I didn't think anything more about it -- we hadn't given them anything but our first names, and I'm not really a wine drinker -- but when we went back to DC for the debrief, there it was." He shakes his head. "I still don't know how he managed to track us down."

"If I ever meet him, I shall have to thank him for his generosity to you. This is a most excellent vintage." Haerviu took another sip of his wine, his expression contemplative. "The last seige I was in was the Battle of Smolensk, fighting in that awful invasion of Russia. We bombarded the city, set it on fire, but it really was pointless with no manner of scaling the walls. Napoleon hadn't thought it would be particularly well-defended, and he didn't make the sort of preparations he needed to in order to take the city. He didn't make enough preparations for the invasion of Russia at all."

He'd been disappointed by Napoleon's failures, and he'd promised himself after he'd gotten himself out of Russia that he wouldn't serve as a French soldier again. He's been tempted to serve in the British army from time to time, but not enough to actually do so.

"That seems to be a common failing for conquerors who want to add Russia to their list of possessions," Michael says dryly. "If I ever set out to rule the world, I'd try to figure out a way to win that battle without actually invading. That, or I'd save them for last and hit them from all sides." He smiles, a little shame-faced. "I spend a lot of time waiting for things to happen, and I have to keep my mind occupied *somehow*."

"Imagination allows us to go places we would never dare to in reality. Or to recreate what was lost, if we've the time and desire to think of such things." Haerviu shrugs one shoulder, taking another sip of his wine before staring into it with a pensive expression on his face. Why all this keeps dragging Henry to the forefront of his mind, he doesn't understand, and never mind that the man - mortal, dead and dust - had an aura about him that dragged everyone that came too close into his orbit. Spun about a star as fierce and brilliant as the sun, to be dragged in and burned or flung free and frozen, and Haerviu could never decide which fate would be worse. "There was one king I have always thought could have conquered the world, if he'd lived longer. Certainly came as near as any to conquering France. Truly conquering it, not just occupying it."

Michael nods, taking advantage of Haerviu's distraction to really look at the man, in a way he hasn't yet allowed himself. He doesn't speak: clearly, this is a subject that Haerviu finds fraught with emotion, even though it has to have happened centuries ago. If Michael wants to hear more -- and he very much does -- then sitting and listening is probably his best option.

He's quiet a long moment, letting his thoughts settle and sort themselves out before he starts, his voice taking on something close to the cadence of the story-tellers of his youth who kept the myths and the histories.

"Imagine, if you will, it is the year fourteen-thirteen. Spring is still just a thought in a divided court when word arrives from England of the death of a king. For years now, the politics around me had been divided between the relatives of the king - Burgundy and Orleans - and the kings of England had been little more to them than one more pawn to play with. The king there, after all, had trouble enough at home that he would do little to even defend his properties in France." He takes another sip of wine, closing his eyes.

"But this new king was not his father, to be placated with empty promises and diplomacy. A wild youth, they saw him, and forgot the stories of his campaigns in Wales, of his service in his father's council. Even, they forgot, his support in troops of Burgundy's taking of Paris barely three years past. I might remind Charles - beloved king, mad king - that this new prince, this new England, was a danger to be watched, but the others would not listen to a common man, no matter the office he bore."

"Henry V. The Battle of Agincourt is still required study at Officer Candidate School," Michael says quietly, leaning forward to refill Haerviu's glass, and then his own. He's read the play, too, but he knows how little Shakespeare cared for historical accuracy, so he doesn't mention it. "He was damned good."

Haerviu laughs, amusement that ends with a shaken head and a sigh that holds a hint of the grief that still digs jagged edges into his soul. "I first met him in fourteen-fourteen, when I was sent in embassy to London. To decline to meet his demands of the king of France, though in truth, the words were sent from the Dauphin. I have never met a more compelling man in my long life, though I am certain there have been others with similar talent or skill or charisma. Or indeed, all of it." He lets out a soft huff of laughter.

"Here was a king, polite and gracious even as I delivered scorn and dismissal of behalf of my masters, who knew how to manipulate men and events to his own ends. Who knew what he desired, and to the smallest hair how far he would go to achieve it, and just what it would take to make it happen. Who could put heart into the most dispirited soldier, and take it out of the stoutest defender." There's a fondness in his voice, a deep respect, but none of the reverence of hero-worship. He'd known Henry too well for that.

Henry sounds like one hell of a commanding officer, and an even better king. Michael has served under one man of that caliber, and he knows how strong that bond can be -- and if he's seeing more in Haerviu's eyes than the grief a man feels for a lost CO, it's probably his own wishful thinking putting something there actually isn't. 

"You make me wish I'd had the chance to meet him," he admits quietly. "He sounds as if he deserves every ounce of his reputation, and more."

"Every bit of it, good and bad." Haerviu gives Michael a self-depricating smile. "He was a harsh man when he needed to be, and cold. But if you were loyal, if you were one he took into his confidence and called friend, never a better one to have could there have been." He pauses, draining his wine glass in one long gulp. It's an insult to the quality of the wine, but he wants the buffer more than the enjoyment of a fine vintage. "He was, until Troyes, supposed to be my enemy, and yet I could never call him such. Not in truth, though I believed myself capable of pretending he was such when in the court of France. Never, though, when sent in embassy to London, or Rouen, or wherever he had his army."

Stolen moments, fewer than he'd desired, and more than he'd ever expected to be granted, until Troyes. Until Henry married Katherine, and was no longer his enemy, but the heir to his king. He wishes, sometimes, the man had lived longer; long enough, perhaps, to have been not only crowned king of France, but to have ruled it. As it was, he'd left his role as Montjoye and his life in France behind with the death of Charles VI a bare two months after Henry. Left to go east, taken up the life of a priest of the Orthodox faith, and tried to settle his grief for losing two kings he'd loved, if in different manners.

Michael refills Haerviu's glass, then puts the bottle back on the table. His own glass is still mostly full, so he remedies that by taking a long swallow, but he doesn't top it back off. The more time he spends in conversation with Haerviu, the more his attraction to the man becomes something more than the mere physical. The pain that Henry's loss still clearly causes Haerviu tempts Michael to offer what comfort he can in the face of that grief, and he's not willing to let lips loosened by alcohol slip and cause offense.

Silence falls once more as Haerviu takes a long sip from his refilled glass. He recognizes the melancholy that lurks at the edges of his mind, that muted, mutated grief that lingers, and sets the glass down next to the bottle. Firmly shaking his head, trying to dispell thoughts that do him no good, and only make him wish once more for a past that differed from what it was.

"Near six hundred years, and still I feel the loss as keenly as if he had died but recently. He and Charles alike, though the love I bore them both differed greatly in form. Mad Charles, beloved king, a boy I watched grow into a man pulled in too many directions to hold his mind together, much less court and country. And Henry, warrior-prince become conqueror and beloved enemy." He pauses, making a noise of frustration. "English doesn't really have the right vocabulary for those years."

"If you know a language that does, feel free to use it," Michael tells him. "If I don't know it myself, I'll track down a dictionary." He lets his lips curl into a slight smile. "After all, the more languages I know, the better off I am, even if I do end up changing careers." Hopefully, the secretive nature of intelligence work will allow him to keep operating, despite the fact that he's no longer aging.

Haerviu watches Michael a moment before he unfolds himself from the couch, taking the long stride to the chair the other man is using. Reaching down to cradle Michael's face in long-fingered hands and leaning in to plant a kiss that is anything but chaste on Michael's lips. Drawing back only enough to murmur, "If offense you take, think on your wish I find a language that has the right vocabulary. This," he dives in for another kiss, fingers tightening to prevent retreat, "the beloved enemy, sun-bright Harry England."

He pulls back slightly, fingers gentle against Michael's face, like a parent's caress of a beloved child, stroking back hair that isn't actually there. "This, mad, beloved Charles."

Michael's breath catches in his throat, surprise and the sudden rush of desire holding him almost motionless, though nothing could keep him from leaning into the touch. 

"Explain that first phrase again?" he says, startled by the breathless sound of his own voice, one hand lifting to Haerviu's, though whether to hold him there or simply to touch, Michael isn't sure.

Crouching so he's more on level with Michael, Haerviu leans in for a hungry, demanding kiss. No retreat, no quarter, even as his fingers stroke against Michael's cheek, coaxing him to reciprocate. Slowly pulling back after a long moment, breathless and with a wry little smile curving his lips. "The physical is perhaps the only language that has the vocabulary to properly express the difference between one sense of beloved and another. And if you were not the sort to have any interest in men, and took offense to my presumption, I merely wished to remind you that you were the one who said to feel free to use a language that had the vocabulary I needed, if I knew one."

"Offense is the last thing I feel," Michael says hoarsely, fingers curling around Haerviu's wrist. He bites his lower lip, hesitating for a moment before he continues. "I'd be glad of a more thorough lesson, if it's not presumptuous on my part to ask."

Haerviu chuckles, and leans in once more, drawing the kiss out this time, leisurely exploring, fingers deftly unbuttoning the first few buttons of Michael's shirt to give him better access to the base of his throat as he shifts his focus. Gentle kisses, light nips, long fingers kneading the back of Michael's neck and out to his shoulder. Voice quiet as he murmurs in Michael's ear, "If I find this distracts you from your training, I'll leave you to a cold bed."

"Understood," Michael says, shivering with pleasure. He doesn't remember his neck being this sensitive, but then, it's been well over eighteen months since someone last touched him with *intent*, and he can't remember anyone having paid that much attention to his neck before. He's used to more passive partners, or to women: certainly he's not used to being seduced, which is probably why he'd been so caught off guard by that first kiss.

Nipping at the hollow of Michael's throat, Haerviu slips each remaining button from their holes slowly, dragging fingertips lightly over each newly exposed bit of skin down Michael's torso. More than willing to draw this out; it's been years since he last had a lover, a lifetime, as Jeannot has never shown any interest in anyone about him regardless of gender. He wants to savor this, enjoy it thoroughly.

Michael's head falls back against the arm of the chair, his eyes closing momentarily under the weight of sensation before he lifts a hand to cradle Haerviu's face, urging him back up for another kiss, this one slow and druggingly deep.

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2011/2012. Unedited.


End file.
